the expression of his eyes, as a person who
I knew in Albany, and who belonged to the party I was seeking. He
informed me that I was within three miles of them, and he gave me plain
directions how to find them. I soon came to their camp and there was a
genial meeting and exchange of news. There were five in the company.
They had a tent and owned a pair of mules. I joined them, as I had not
come to depend on mining, as I never had been accustomed to physical
labor. At first I thought it was awful hard work, and that it was lucky
for me that I had not come to California depending on it, but after a
short time I got used to it and liked it. They took turns in cooking, so
each one had one day in the week that he did the cooking. We lived on
fried pork and flapjacks made from wheat flour fried in the fat of the
pork, tin cups for our tea and coffee, and tin dishes. We each had stone
seats, and a big one in the center for our table. At night we slept
under our tent. The gold rivers were not navigable. They were sunk way
down deep in the earth. When the rainy season sets in during the winter
months, and sometimes rains every day in the month, causing the snow to
melt on the Sierra Nevada mountains, where these streams take their
rise, will cause the water to rise often from ten to twenty feet in a
night, and in the course of ages has worn their depth down into the
earth, and is supposed to have washed out of the earth the scales of
gold that are found on the banks of the rivers. The first mining was a
very simple process. A party of three could work together to the best
advantage. A virgin bar was where the river had once run over and now
receded from it. Three persons worked together, one to clear off the
sand on the ground to within six inches of the hardpan. The top earth
was not considered worth washing, the scales of gold, being heavier, had
settled through it, but could not penetrate that portion of the earth
called the hardpan, so the earth within six inches of it was impregnated
with more or less gold, and one to carry the bucket to the rocker, and
the other to run the rocker, which was located close to the water. The
rocker was a trough about three feet in length with three slats in it
and a sieve at the upper end, on which the bucket of earth was thrown.
The man worked the rocker with one hand and dipped the water out of the
river with a tin-handled dipper. As he worked the rocker the fine earth
and scales of gold pass